July 24, 2013

Ithaca Ranked on Kiplinger’s 10 Great Places to Live List

Ithaca is finally getting recognized as the great city (yes, city) we all know and love, at least when it’s not below freezing. According to a report by Kiplinger, a multimedia outlet that covers personal finance and business, Ithaca ranks number eight on its list of “10 Great Places to Live.”

To compute these rankings, Kiplinger took cities that have a population of 1 million people or fewer and looked at which cities of that size had “good jobs, reasonably priced homes, decent schools, great healthcare and manageable size.”

Kiplinger then sent reporters to each city it decided met these criteria to discover what exactly makes them great, such as the culture and dedication to sustainability, or even a “gorgeous setting” (they said it, not us).

Besides boasting an unemployment rate of 5.1 percent, lower than the national 7.6 percent reported in June, Kiplinger was impressed by Ithaca’s educational powerhouse, with Cornell and Ithaca College, as well as the K-12 public school system.

Cornell is, in fact, the largest employer in Tompkins County and, as Kiplinger wrote, “start-ups fueled by Cornell’s brainpower … ha[ve] sustained Ithaca’s economic growth while other upstate communities have fallen on hard times.”

I know what you are all thinking, ‘How did Kiplinger not think about how cold and miserable it is here 7 months out of the year?’ Well, obviously cold weather did not factor into the rankings — Anchorage, Alaska is number nine on the list.

Other great things about Ithaca: over 100 wineries in the area (duh), the Ithaca Farmers’ market, the local theatre, more restaurants per capita than New York City (true story), the natural environment (again, when it’s not below freezing) and the Commons. Oh, and the housing market.

Now that Kiplinger has given you plenty of reasons, try to explore all that Ithaca has to offer when we return back to school in the fall.

Editors note: David Marten ’14, Sun Tech Editor, contributed reporting to Kiplinger’s “10 Great Places to Live.” He was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.

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